I am well into a month training for my first tri and started worrying a bit about how slow I am and how I need to get my distance/speed up. Can anyone give me a good guide line for how much time I should aim for in the swim and bike portion.

Check out the results of that race from year's past to get a feeling of where you'll be in the mix. No need to worry about being "too slow" unless they have cutoff times, which they might for the swim. In my last sprint race they had a cutoff time of 28 min for 700m for the swim (4:00/100m).

I wouldn't worry about times. I did my first sprint tri in march and was nervous big time! My swim was slow, first transition even slower, a good bike time, and I somehow busted out a 25:32 5k!?! Before the sprint my best 5k was around 28:30 with fresh legs. I still can't explain it. That's still the only tri I've done so far but I'm still training and still not worried about times. I now run around 5-6.5 miles about 4 times a week and on the weekends try to get in a 15-25 mile bike with a 5k also. My goal is to keep improving, once I decide to pick out my next tri to be in that's when I'll look at the clock.

Long story short, enjoy it and you will probably do better than you expect. My goal of the sprint I completed was to finish! Much to my surprise I placed well in my age group.

Echoing what the other have said, your objectives in your first race should be to get to the finish and have fun. Most folks who try to hit a target time on their first race go out too fast, which can result in a miserable day.

Learning to pace yourself over the entire race is one of the keys to triathlon. Always better to go out a bit slow and pick up your pace during the race.

Also, be sure to practice your transitions: you can pick up "free time" there.

First race should never be about speed or placing... it's a learning experience. All most everyone doing their first race will make mistakes/miscalculations. For the first race (and probably the second and third), think about what you did well, what didn't go so well and what you need work on. One thing that I've found helped me out a lot was to keep a log for the days before the race, the race day, document the race, and what you felt like afterwards. Think about training the days before, what you ate, liquids you took in, sleep pattern, etc. For race day, write down what you packed, how you set up transition, your feelings, etc. Then during the race, write down what you did well, what didn't go so well, pacing, etc. The whole idea is to document everything so you can use it as a future reference guide. You already know what works for you so you can stick to it. By writing down feelings, you also have a mental reminder what to expect.

Yeah, my original comment was meant more as a guideline, since you had asked. I was trying to convey the idea that you don't need to be nearly as fast as you probably think you do in order to have a great race.......the overwhelming majority of people who do triathlon are not fast....and really, nobody cares anyway. You'll see. Have fun!

Yeah, my original comment was meant more as a guideline, since you had asked. I was trying to convey the idea that you don't need to be nearly as fast as you probably think you do in order to have a great race.......the overwhelming majority of people who do triathlon are not fast....and really, nobody cares anyway. You'll see. Have fun!

That's good, because if I had seen your 16.5 mph advice before my first sprint, I would have been pretty discouraged, where I ended up well under 15mph. Even this year, doing the same race for the second time, I barely cleared the 16.5 you cited, and I was in the top 1/3 of women on the bike. Races and individuals can vary so widely.

To the OP, check last year's results and compare to your training paces, and check the race website to see if they have any cutoffs. You're overwhelmingly unlikely to be last, and in my experience I've always had some race day magic that made at least one of my disciplines come in way ahead of my expectations. You'll do great!

You can check my race log, but my first I completed in 1h50min for a ~17mile race. Everyone passed me on the bike and those that hadn't passed me on bike, passed me on the run. I'll learn how to go fast next year :-)

I would like to add a slightly different take from the crowd. I completed my 1st tri (sprint) last month. Being fairly competitive, having fun for me meant doing well within parameters I thought were reasonable. Just finishing would not have been fun for me if I thought my times were beneath my perceived level of fitness. That being said, I wasn't looking to podium. I looked at the times for the middle of my AG pack (58 competitors in 2012), compared them to my training times, and set goals that way. My goal was top 1/2 (succeeded: 21/62) with a hope for top 20 (just missed). I beat my goal for the swim and run while equaling the mph goal (but not AG place) for the bike. While those aren't earth-shattering numbers, I had a lot of fun. I guess that's all a long-winded way of saying goal setting and having fun are not mutually exclusive, as long as you are realistic. And I would like to finish with this: HAVE FUN!